I often joke that my colleague Rakesh Radhakrishnan believes in "Identity-enabled Everything" because of his passionate, prolific treatment of how to leverage Identity Management for the benefit of the communications industry. But yesterday, I heard Jonathan Schwartz propose Identity enabling something I had not thought of and Rakesh hasn't yet written about.

Jonathan was discussing how the intersection of Sun's Server, Storage, Software and Services business units produces remarkable opportunities. To illustrate, he recalled Sun's recent announcement of Device-Level Encryption on the Sun StorageTek T10000 Tape Drive.

If data on a tape is encrypted, it must be decrypted to be used. Decryption implies authentication and authorization, which should be part of a cohesive Identity Management system.

This is yet another example of how Identity Management is not only an essential function whenever we consider secure, personalized information services, but is an enabler to new, innovative business opportunities.

Technorati Tags: Identity, Digital Identity, Identity Management, Sun Microsystems, Encryption